COMPASS: a 2.6m telescope for CMBR polarization studies

COMPASS (COsmic Microwave Polarization at Small Scale) is an experiment devoted to measuring the polarization of the CMBR. Its design and characteristics are presented

Vortex and half-vortex dynamics in a spinor quantum fluid of interacting polaritons

Spinorial or multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates may sustain fractional quanta of circulation, vorticant topological excitations with half integer windings of phase and polarization. Matter-light quantum fluids, such as microcavity polaritons, represent a unique test bed for realising strongly interacting and out-of-equilibrium condensates. The direct access to the phase of their wavefunction enables us to pursue the quest of whether half vortices ---rather than full integer vortices--- are the fundamental topological excitations of a spinor polariton fluid. Here, we are able to directly generate by resonant pulsed excitations, a polariton fluid carrying either the half or full vortex states as initial condition, and to follow their coherent evolution using ultrafast holography. Surprisingly we observe a rich phenomenology that shows a stable evolution of a phase singularity in a single component as well as in the full vortex state, spiraling, splitting and branching of the initial cores under different regimes and the proliferation of many vortex anti-vortex pairs in self generated circular ripples. This allows us to devise the interplay of nonlinearity and sample disorder in shaping the fluid and driving the phase singularities dynamicsComment: New version complete with revised modelization, discussion and added material. 8 pages, 7 figures. Supplementary videos: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0QCllnLqdyBfmc2ai0yVF9fa2g2VnZodGUwemVkLThBb3BoOVRKRDJMS2dUdjlZdkRTQk

Detection of Zak phases and topological invariants in a chiral quantum walk of twisted photons

Topological insulators are fascinating states of matter exhibiting protected edge states and robust quantized features in their bulk. Here, we propose and validate experimentally a method to detect topological properties in the bulk of one-dimensional chiral systems. We first introduce the mean chiral displacement, and we show that it rapidly approaches a multiple of the Zak phase in the long time limit. Then we measure the Zak phase in a photonic quantum walk, by direct observation of the mean chiral displacement in its bulk. Next, we measure the Zak phase in an alternative, inequivalent timeframe, and combine the two windings to characterize the full phase diagram of this Floquet system. Finally, we prove the robustness of the measure by introducing dynamical disorder in the system. This detection method is extremely general, as it can be applied to all one-dimensional platforms simulating static or Floquet chiral systems.Comment: 10 pages, 7 color figures (incl. appendices) Close to the published versio

SARS-CoV-2 and companion animals: sources of information and communication campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

This study analyzed data on the sources and the level of Italians’ awareness on the risk of infection by SARS-CoV-2 at the human–animal interface. Data were collected through a survey-type investigation on a representative sample of the Italian population. Forty-five percent of the interviewees were aware that companion animals could be infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, 29.8% were familiar with preventive measures to adopt to avoid viral transmission between infected humans and companion animals, and only 20.7% knew which companion animals could be at risk of infection. Higher awareness regarding the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission between animals and humans (51.7%) and the measures to prevent it (33.3%) was detected among companion animals’ owners. Notably, 40.4% of interviewees were not informed at all. Television broadcasts (26.4%) represented the main source of information, while only 3.5% of the interviewees relied on veterinarians, of which 31.9% considered this source of information as the most trustworthy. Overall, 72.4% of Italians recognized that the communication campaign on COVID-19 and companion animals was inadequate. This survey highlights the need for increasing the public awareness of the risk of companion animals being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and the involvement of professionals in the public communication on zoonoses. © 2023 by the authors

CLOVER - A new instrument for measuring the B-mode polarization of the CMB

We describe the design and expected performance of Clover, a new instrument designed to measure the B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The proposed instrument will comprise three independent telescopes operating at 90, 150 and 220 GHz and is planned to be sited at Dome C, Antarctica. Each telescope will feed a focal plane array of 128 background-limited detectors and will measure polarized signals over angular multipoles 20 < l < 1000. The unique design of the telescope and careful control of systematics should enable the B-mode signature of gravitational waves to be measured to a lensing-confusion-limited tensor-to-scalar ratio r~0.005.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the XXXVIXth Rencontres de Moriond "Exploring the Universe

Antibiotic activity of a Paraphaeosphaeria sporulosa-produced diketopiperazine against Salmonella enterica

A diketopiperazine has been purified from a culture filtrate of the endophytic fungus Paraphaeosphaeria sporulosa, isolated from healthy tissues of strawberry plants in a survey of microbes as sources of anti-bacterial metabolites. Its structure has been determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) analyses and was found to be identical to cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe) purified from species of other fungal genera. This secondary metabolite has been selected following bioguided-assay fractionation against two strains of Salmonella enterica, the causal agent of bovine gastroenteritis. The diketopiperazine cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe), isolated for the first time from Paraphaeosphaeria species, showed minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 71.3 and 78.6 μg/mL against the two S. enterica strains. This finding may be significant in limiting the use of synthetic antibiotics in animal husbandry and reducing the emergence of bacterial multidrug resistance. Further in vivo experiments of P. sporulosa diketopiperazines are important for the future application of these metabolites

Reasons for tooth extractions and related risk factors in adult patients: a cohort study

Background: The aimof this studywas to evaluate oral status, the reasons for tooth extractions and related risk factors in adult patients attending a hospital dental practice. Methods: 120 consecutive patients ranging from23 to 91 years in age (mean age of 63.3 - 15.8) having a total of 554 teeth extracted were included. Surveys about general health status were conducted and potential risk factors such as smoking, diabetes and age were investigated. Results: a total of 1795 teeth weremissing after extraction procedures and the mean number of remaining teeth after the extraction process was 16.8 ± 9.1 per patient. Caries (52.2%) was the most common reason for extraction along with periodontal disease (35.7%). Males were more prone to extractions, with 394 of the teeth extracted out of the total of 554 (71.1%). Male sex (β = 2.89; 95% CI 1.26, 4.53; p = 0.001) and smoking habit (β = 2.95; 95% CI 1.12, 4.79; p = 0.002) were related to a higher number of teeth extracted. Age (β = -0.24; 95% CI -0.31, -0.16; p &lt; 0.001) and diabetes (β = -4.47; 95% CI -7.61, -1.33; p = 0.006) were related to a higher number of missing teeth at evaluation time. Moreover, periodontal disease was more common as a reason of extraction among diabetic patients than among non-diabetic ones (p = 0.04). Conclusions: caries and periodontal disease were the most common causes of extraction in a relatively old study population: further screening strategies might be required for the early interception of caries and periodontal disease